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Novel soars on wings of angels

Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology has emerged as one of the buzz books of the spring.

Danielle Trussoni's 'Angelology' is being compared to 'The Da Vinci Code.' But some critics have likened it more to Umberto Eco’s 'The Name of the Rose,' which might induce readers who look down at anything Dan Brown. (RICHARD LAUTENS / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

“It was explosive,” recalls Danielle Trussoni, still somewhat stunned by the eagerness with which the publishing industry pounced on her debut novel, Angelology. “It must have struck some sort of nerve.”

To put it mildly.

The U.S. author’s New York agent started shopping the title in January 2009. Copies were sent out on a Wednesday and by that same Friday the Canadian and German rights had been snapped up. By the end of the following week, the U.S. had been secured after a bidding war, several other foreign-language publishers had signed on and a movie deal had been inked.

It probably didn’t hurt that Trussoni’s authorial resume, while short, was promising. The Wisconsin native’s one previous book, Falling Through the Earth, a memoir of her troubled relationship with her Vietnam vet father, was ranked as one of the Top 10 books of 2006 by the New York Times. More crucial, surely, were all those comparisons to The Da Vinci Code.

No surprise, then, that Angelology has emerged as one of the buzz books of the spring season. Published earlier this month, the novel debuted in the top 10 of the New York Times bestseller list. Reviews, including a rave on the front of the same paper’s influential weekly book section, were largely positive. Some critics have cited Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, a potential inducement to readers who might look down their noses at anything that even remotely suggests an affinity to Dan Brown.

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“If those comparisons bring readers to my book, I’m happy,” says Trussoni, during a publicity stop this week at the Toronto offices of Doubleday Canada. “I just hope that people aren’t so small-minded that they think every writer using a certain kind of archetypal format is the same writer.

“Dan Brown didn’t invent the quest story. And Dan Brown didn’t invent the idea of a fast, quick narrative, either. One difference, perhaps, is that (Brown) is always trying to write thrillers. I’m concerned with character and setting. And I’ve always been more interested in the way the sentence expresses itself on the page, not to sound too precious.”

Trussoni, a 36-year-old graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, started working on Angelology immediately after the release of Falling Through the Earth. The novel builds toward a clue-seeking, good-versus-evil confrontation between a Franciscan nun, Angeline, and her scholarly accomplice, Verlaine, on one side, and the descendants of the rebellious angels expelled by God from heaven on the other.

Over 450 pages, the novel’s contemporary storyline weaves together with Christian and Greek mythology, ancient and Second World War II history and a secret correspondence involving the philanthropic New York heiress Abigail Rockefeller. The action moves through New York City, a convent on the Hudson River, Paris and the Devil’s Throat Cavern in Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains, a fabled passageway to the underworld.

“I wanted to create an absolute break between my first book and my second book, to reinvent the wheel in some sense and make my next book completely a world of fiction, rather than something that was in any way associated with my life,” Trussoni says. “If I want to write about myself again, I’ll write another book of non-fiction, but my fiction will be absolutely different.”

For now, at least, she is sticking with the angels. Will Smith’s production company Overbrook, which owns the film rights to Angelology, has enlisted director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) and screenwriter Michael Goldenberg (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) to work on the movie.

While Trussoni isn’t more than peripherally involved in the screen version, she is eager to finish up the publicity rounds for Angelology so she can return to the countryside of southwest France, where she lives with her Bulgarian-born husband/writer, Nikolai Grozni, and resume work on the sequel, Angelopolis.

“I’m not a screenwriter. I love film, but I’m not a casting director,” she says. “I’ll let the movie people do what they’re good at and I’ll continue to do what I’m good at.

“I started this book as a stand-alone book. And then as I was finishing the first draft I told my agent that I really felt like I wasn’t done. The characters are so rich. And the world itself is alluring to me personally. I put so much time and care into creating it, so why not write another one?”

Ten hot titles for the season

Ten titles to watch out for this spring:

• Yann Martel, Beatrice and Virgil The long-awaited, Holocaust-themed novel by the Canadian author of the Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi. April 6.

• Norris Church Mailer, A Ticket to the Circus A memoir by the widow of the late, great American novelist Norman Mailer. April 6.

• Andrea Levy, The Long Song Prize-winning U.K. author of Small Island and other novels returns with a story set against the backdrop of the slave trade. April 20.

• Roddy Doyle, The Dead Republic The concluding chapter in the popular Irish novelist’s Henry Smart trilogy, launched in 1999 with A Star Called Henry. May 4.

• Martin Amis, The Pregnant Widow Judging by some of the reviews out of the U.K., this comedy of manners set during the early 1970s sexual revolution promises a return to form. May 11.

• Paul Quarrington, Cigar Box Banjo: A Life in Music and Words A memoir from the multi-talented Toronto author and musician, who died earlier this year. May 15.

• Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest The last of the phenomenally popular books published since the death of the Swedish crime novelist in 2004. May 25.

• Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw The subtitle, A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, probably tells you all you need to know. June 8

• Chevy Stevens, Still Missing Creepy debut by Vancouver Island suspense novelist is generating a lot of industry buzz and is already slated for translation into more than 10 languages. July 6.

Vit Wagner

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